Appeal No. 2001-0413
Application No. 09/182,404
The examiner maintains that Klainman teaches directing a stream of air onto a
rotating deflector. (See answer at page 3.) We disagree with the examiner and find no
support for this finding at the cited portions of Klainman. We merely find a teaching of
placing the fan adjacent the optical beam which does not teach directing the stream of
air at the (rotating) deflection element. The examiner maintains that the stream of air
produced by fan 29 would “inherently be directed onto the deflecting element (28)” by
forcing the air across optical path 30. (See answer at page 4.) We disagree with the
examiner’s conclusion. While it may appear from Figure 1 that the stream of air may
strike the rotating element, it is clear that Klainman is indifferent to the placement of the
fan as long as it crosses at the maximum width of the beam (between the beam
expander and the mirror). Therefore, it would not necessarily direct a stream of air
onto the rotating or any other deflection element. Moreover, Klainman suggests at
column 3, lines 29-31 that the air current deflectors are mounted on the fan so as to
vary the direction of the forced air across the optical path. Therefore, this would
suggest that the deflecting element is not the item to be cooled. Therefore, we find that
the examiner has not established a prima facie case of anticipation, and we will not
sustain the rejection of independent claims 1, 6, 12, 16, and 19 and their respective
dependent claims.
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